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09 July 2021 / David Renton
Issue: 7940 / Categories: Features , Housing , Human rights
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The threat of eviction & life on the brink

52439
David Renton reports on the real-world realities for those left on the verge of eviction

Recently, I represented Ms Silver, a woman in her mid-fifties who had lived in her home for 20 years. She was an agency nurse, and her blue scrubs poked out from beneath a black waterproof coat.

In 2015, Ms Silver suffered a series of delays in renewing her registration as a nurse. The body that handles registrations needed her employers to write to confirm that she worked for them. But her trust managers were always too busy to send the letter. Days became weeks, and in the end Ms Silver went six months without registration. She tried to keep up with her rent, and the benefits advisers told her to declare herself self-employed. She tried to establish an online business selling jewellery, but that work brought hardly any money in. Eventually, the housing association took her to court and obtained a suspended possession order.

A suspended possession order leaves you stuck,

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Slater Heelis—Charlotte Beck

Slater Heelis—Charlotte Beck

Partner and Manchester office lead appointed head of family

Civil Justice Council—Nigel Teasdale

Civil Justice Council—Nigel Teasdale

DWF insurance services director appointed to Civil Justice Council

R3—Jodie Wildridge

R3—Jodie Wildridge

Kings Chambers barrister appointed chair of R3 Yorkshire

NEWS

The abolition of assured shorthold tenancies and section 21 evictions marks the beginning of a ‘brave new world’ for England’s rental sector, writes Daniel Bacon of Seddons GSC

Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation
Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group
A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision
An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading
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